As LooptyHoops was born, there were several people who came alongside us and gave us the help of their expertise, friendship, and support. We want to publicly thank them here.
With warmest thanks to them,
--Susan and Ethan
First and foremost, Halligan Norris, who not only loved the idea but gave us her vision for the website “fun and fem” and then shared her instinctual vision for what it should look like. She went through “good sites” and “bad sites” and told me why she categorized each that way. Then we talked about the name and the look of the logo. She recommended Shawn Hileman who became our graphic designer. Halli is married to my nephew Adam Smith.
Shawn Hileman – who came up with our awesome logo. Everyone who sees our logo, loves it. Thank you, Shawn! www.shawnhileman.com
Adam Smith – gave us great ideas, especially for the spelling of our name, as well as lots of other creative ideas.
Dave O’Connell – is an expert at internet marketing and he gave us lots of feedback on our site and ways to optimize the shopping experience as well as help us to get known on the internet. Dave (although he’s called the Internet Marketing Guru by those who know him) now runs his own digital marketing company. http://davidroconnell.com/
Rachel Starzmann – is Dave’s girlfriend and gave us tons of great ideas one night over a very long dinner together. She works for Coldwell Banker Preferred (in the “Old City Office” in Philadelphia) and is an Agent Services Coordinator there.
Audrey Tumaneng – is an expert in paid search and gave us a lot of her time and shared her expertise so I would have a greater understanding how to use paid search. Audrey is my former administrative assistant and then she went with stroll.com and now she has started her own non-profit organization committed to bringing awareness to the orphaned children around the world that lack basic necessities that many of us take for granted everyday and also lack the ability to create future hope or future dreams for themselves.
Lauren Billings - is a website designer and friend who shared lots of tips on how to make an e-commerce site successful.
Oliver Smith – is a jewelry designer who also happens to be Susan’s brother who she was in business with for years. That ended a decade and a half ago but since then he has grown his store in Scottsdale, AZ and has begun his own signature line of earring charms which we feature on this site. www.oliversmithjeweler.com.
Anna Zollman (Kukuchek) – is the photographer, website contributor and social media expert for Oliver’s business and she gave me lots of good ideas when I visited her at my brother’s store for several days back in April 2011.
Cyndy Drue – gave me great ideas about videos, edited some of ours, and worked on various aspects of the launch of LooptyHoops, including our photo shoot for videos of models wearing our jewelry. She’s also, by the way, Susan’s sister and best friend. Check out her photography and all the other things she is up to at www.cyndydrue.com.
All the people that responded to our soft launch request:
Joseph Kolasinski at Bradford Woodworking – is an expert tweeter, blogger, and facebook contributor for Susan’s brother Brad’s business. He gave us some great insight after we first launched (I think he was the first one who had the nerve to tell me my first version of “About Us” was way too long!) Check out his great use of social media by visiting (and then friending on FB) www.bradfordwoodworking.com.
Leidy Smith – was the second person who had the nerve to tell me my first version of “About Us” was too long! He gave me a bunch of other good feedback, too….he’s my brother and has been a long time entrepreneur whose latest venture can be found here at www.zipbridge.net.
Ed Stern – is a very creative, intuitive, and knowledgeable marketer who owns his own business
Jennine Rexon – was a Vistage member of mine whose veins flow with marketing juices all the time! She knows how to do it! www.rexdirectnet.com is her company that offers performance based internet marketing solutions that work!
Vanessa Piala is a friend who knows how to write much better than I do! When she publishes her first best seller, I’ll reference it here!
Stephanie Fleetman – is a friend who gave me good feedback during our soft launch. “Sam” owns her own business, www.mustangexpediting.com.
Kathi Clayton – was our first customer! Even though it took a lot more time to check out then (when we had a different cart and payment system), Kathi persevered and received two pairs of hoop earrings that she really liked (phew!). On top of that, she gave me lots of feedback as to how the experience was for her and as a result, we changed the payment method (so easy now!) and implemented other packaging ideas.
